Women clamored to touch him, to be in his presence. Some of them were dressed in lacy, white blouses with light blue jumpers trimmed in brown, like his beloved Belle. Others were dressed in off-the-shoulder gold dresses and others dressed in (his personal favorite) in short, sparkly purple dresses with their hair in buns on top of their heads.
It didn't matter what they looked like. It just mattered that they were fangirling over him.
Hook (the bastard) and Charming (the idiot) stood close to him, surrounded by their own fangirls and a few fanboys. They gave their autographs and took the required photos. Rumpelstilskin giggled when Charming blushed beet-red and stammered when a busty brunette gave her panties for him to sign and groped him as she took a photo of them together on her phone.
Snow glared at the brunette groping her husband and pursed her lips. Charming would hear about the incident later, Rumple knew.
Rumple smiled at the identical blond twins dressed like Belle in her "Lacey" phase who clamored close to him to take a picture. He was glad Bae had decided not to come to this year's Comic Con. While Rumple was sure that Bae would've enjoyed meeting his own fangirls, it just meant that Bae didn't have to see his papa relying so much on the attention
A haunting, melancholy tune from a pipe drifted through the crowd from the other side of the large room. Rumple's, as well as Hook's and Charming's, fan girls left their idols and pushed their way through the crowd towards the sound.
Hook and Charming stood there, stunned, as all of the fangirls abandoned them for whoever it was playing the pipe. Rumple focused his vision across the room and found that the fan girls and boys were dancing and whooping around a hooded figure with a wooden pipe to its mouth.
"That piper just took our fans," Charming said, his mind no doubt still on the brunette who had grabbed his balls.
Hook pulled out his sword. "Let's find the scoundrel and fight him," he said, brandishing his sword with his only hand.
Rumple rolled his eyes. He didn't have time to deal with Hook's and Charming's bravado and theatrics. He sped through the crowd of baffled characters to the edge of the dancing crowd. "Girls," he called, but they didn't answer.
He pushed through the dancers and tried to avoid their flailing limbs. "Girls." The fans continued to ignore, still hypnotized by the music. Rumple grabbed a fan girl to see if she was his, but she wore a cat mask. He let her go and the fan skipped away.
Rumple spotted the pipe player in the center of the group. He danced in time to the music, though not as wildly as the fans. Rumpel whooshed through the fans to the piper. He grabbed the pipe, and broke it in half. "Where are my fans, Piper?" Rumple asked.
"Is that what they're calling me?" the piper asked, amused. He pulled down his hood to reveal a pixie-like face with dirty-blond hair and bright blue eyes. "We both know who I really am."
It was him. Rumple stepped away in shock. "Been a long time, laddie," the Piper sneered. "Glad you could make this Comic Con."
Rumple couldn't respond.
The Piper continued. "You surprised to see me, Rumple? Oh, I don't blame you. I'm a little surprised myself." He looked Rumple up and down. "Look who's all grown up and become a character. Good for you," he said condescendingly.
"What are you doing here?" Rumple managed to ask.
"It was lonely in Neverland," the Piper said. "The only friends I have are the fans that visit in their dreams. They can't stay. The fans I take back with me will."
"You're here for my fan girls." Rumple said. Why did the bastard have to ruin everything?
"I am," the Piper replied, smug.
"It's going to take a lot more than a magic pipe to take my fan girls," Rumple threatened.
The Piper gave his broken pipe a quick glance. "The only thing magic about this pipe is that only certain fangirls can hear it… fangirls who feel unloved, fangirls who feel abandoned by their favorite characters at Comic Cons. I guess that why you can hear it, Rumple? Isn't it?"
"Don't pretend to know me. You don't. Not anymore."
"Oh, I think I do. Beneath all that power, you're nothing more than an unloved, lonely, lost fan." The Piper laughed. "Hey, I like the sound of that. That's what I'll call my new group of friends. The lost fans." He waved his hands at the still dancing fans. "Has a nice ring, don't you think?"
"You can call them whatever you like," Rumple said. "My fangirls will not be part of it."
"Oh, they're already a part of it. The question is, what are you willing to do to get them back?" the Piper asked.
"I'm going to make you regret asking that question," Rumple hissed.
"Oh, I understand you're upset," the Piper mocked. "Most characters' worst fears are that their fans will be taken from them. But that's not yours, is it, Rumple? No. You're not afraid your fans will be taken from you. You're afraid they'll leave. After all, being abandoned is what you're good at, isn't it? Everyone you've ever known has left, haven't they? Like your wife, Milah. Not to mention your own favorite character. Why should your fangirls be any different?"
"You're wrong," Rumple whispered.
"Am I? Well, let's find out, shall we? You ask your fans if they want to come to Neverland with me or stay here with you. If they want to stay, I'll leave and never go to another Comic Con again." The Piper leaned in towards Rumple. "Deal?"
"I don't have to make any deals with you," Rumple said.
"But why wouldn't you if you're so sure they'll stay?" the Piper asked. The girls continued to whoop and laugh and fling themselves around Rumple and the Piper. Rumple searched for any fan girl that was his or that would recognize him. Rumple pushed his way through flailing limbs. "You don't even recognize them, do you, Rumple?"
"How could I when there are so many of them?" Rumple snapped, still looking for one fan girl that was his.
"Well, there's a lot of fans, but that's not the reason. Look at them," the Piper said. , pointing at the fan girl wearing the sparkly purple dress. "Dancing with other fans, out in the world. They're happy, Rumple. That's why you don't recognize them."
Rumple grabbed the fangirl's shoulders. "Girl," he said, still gripping the fan girl's shoulders. "Girl, are you all right?"
"We're fine," she said with a puzzled look on her face. "Why are you over here?"
"I know you think I don't care about you, girl, but I do," Rumple said, holding his hand to his heart. "And I'm here to prove it."
"How?" she asked.
"Go ahead, Rumple," Peter Pan said smugly
"Rumplestilskin!" the fan girl cried. "What are you doing?"
"I'm protecting you." Rumple enveloped himself and the fan girls dressed like Belle in red smoke.
"You're going to regret not taking my deal, Rumple," Peter yelled.
Rumple teleported his fan girls to an empty warehouse he had seen earlier that day on his way to the convention center. The fan girls looked around them in shock. Some screamed. Some ran away in shock.
"Let go of me," the fan girl yelled, trying to pull away from Rumple's grasp. Rumple let go of the fan girl. She backed away from him in terror.
"Get away from us," she yelled.
"It's all right now, girls. You're safe," Rumple promised, though they probably didn't believe him.
"Safe? We were never in danger," the sparkly fangirl said. "The Piper was our friend."
"He may have wanted you to think that. But you have to believe me. He would've hurt you," Rumple said, pointing at Sparkly. He turned and walked towards some of the other fangirls.
"Why? Who is he? Another person that you abused with your fame?" Sparkly asked.
"His name is Peter Pan," Rumple said quietly. "I've known him since I was a boy. Growing up, we were extremely close."
"So you're saying he's a character, too?"
"He wasn't always. He went to a place called Neverland. He betrayed me, fans. He can't be trusted."
"What happened?" one of the fan girls shouted from somewhere in the middle of the crowd.
"All that matters is that he fooled me for a long time before I'd finally seen his true nature and it is darker and more repulsive than any of you should ever be exposed to," Rumple insisted.
"He can't be any worse than you," Sparkly said.
"I had to protect you girls. I didn't have a choice," Rumple said. They had to understand. They didn't know.
"Stop lying because we know what you did," Sparkly said.. "We know about the deal that Pan offered you. He said all you had to do was ask us if we wanted to go back to you."
"He told you?" Rumple whispered.
"He said that way we'd know if you really cared about us," Sparkly said.
"Oh, please, girls."
"You didn't need to. We would have to chosen to come back." Sparkly walked up to Rumple with a hurt look on her face. " We would have chosen you! If only you'd asked. Maybe we could have found a way to be your fan girls "
The rest of the fangirls left the warehouse, in groups or one-by-one.
"You can still be. Girls? Girls!" Rumple shouted, but it didn't matter.
They always left him in the end.